


Gotta Be Something More

by katmarajade



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Community: teddyfest, Gen, Metamorphmagus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-25
Updated: 2014-02-25
Packaged: 2018-01-13 18:50:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1237216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katmarajade/pseuds/katmarajade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Teddy wants to know something real about his mum.  Enter Charlie Weasley: Tonks' best friend and first love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gotta Be Something More

Teddy stared nervously into the mirror, changing his hair from blue to pink to brown to red and back to blue. He tried to broaden his shoulders to make himself look older and manlier, more impressive, but he hadn't quite mastered bone shifting yet and it tended to look funny. Cartilage, skin, and hair were much simpler. With a sigh, he ceased his efforts, letting his appearance fade back into his own scrawny, skinny shape and usual turquoise hair.

Charlie Weasley had owled him. Apparently, Charlie had known his mother; they'd been quite close, but no one had bothered to tell Teddy that, not in fifteen years. Teddy knew, of course, that it was a result of the epic row he'd had with his grandmother yesterday about his mum. He was an under-sized, fifteen-year-old, Metamorphmagus, orphaned freak, and he didn't think that it was too much to ask to want to know _something_ about where he came from.

Harry talked to him about his father, telling Teddy the few stories that Harry knew about Remus Lupin's Hogwarts days, his lycanthropy, and his work for the Order of the Phoenix. Harry understood how it felt to hear the same platitudes about one's dead parents over and over. But Harry had barely known Teddy's mum, so other than a couple of stories about her ineptitude with packing spells and how she'd rescued Harry after he'd gotten attacked by Draco Malfoy, Teddy hadn't learned much about her. 

Which had led to him asking his grandmother, who offered absolutely no real information, other than that his mum had been a lovely, clumsy girl and had liked pink hair. His grandmother was wonderful, but very tight-lipped about her daughter. Teddy figured that they must not have had a very good relationship and that his grandmother felt guilty now that she was gone, but, to be honest, he didn't really care what her problem was. He had a right to know about his own mum, didn't he? 

The Floo chime rang downstairs and with one last look in the mirror, Teddy bolted down the stairs into the sitting room where Charlie Weasley was sitting stiffly in one of his grandmother's high-backed green chairs. Teddy gracelessly tripped over the rug and fell onto the sofa, where he quickly adjusted himself and tried to hide the blush in his cheeks by subtly adjusting the shade of his skin. 

"So, you knew my mum, then?" Teddy asked, after several minutes of awkward silence. 

"Oh, erm, yeah, yeah, I knew her. We were best of friends, actually. In the same year at Hogwarts, though she was a Hufflepuff and I was in Gryffindor." He looked up at Teddy who tried to give what he thought was an encouraging look. 

"First time we met, Tonks was bouncing down one of the moving staircases—you know the one over near the Astronomy tower with the fake step second from the top? Yeah, that one. She had missed the step on the way down and fell all the way to the bottom—bloody long way too, you know. But she puffed herself up a bit, you know, the metamorphing, and she looked a bit like a balloon or something." Teddy thought he would have to test that idea out later. 

"I rushed over to her, not having any idea who she was and not recognizing her because she was twice her usual size, and I helped her up. She looked up at me, blushed _bright_ red and her shape went all wibbly and she shrunk back into her usual self. She was the tiniest thing, so short and scrawny…" Charlie's voice trailed off wistfully. 

"And you two became friends then?" Teddy asked, curious. 

"Well, not straight away, but near enough. I introduced myself and she kept blushing—had the biggest crush on me from the first time she laid eyes on me!" Charlie laughed quietly. "By the end of our conversation, her hair had turned bright red—all long and flowing and red as any Weasley. It stayed that way for a whole week and every time I saw her in the Great Hall or during Herbology, which we had with the Hufflepuffs, I would wink at her and her face would light up as red as her hair. It was strange and I don't think she was even purposely doing it…"

"The same thing happened to me," Teddy muttered, flushing slightly. "When I was younger, I mean, and couldn't control my abilities as well. When I was little, I would mimic anyone who I admired. I spent almost a year with black hair and a lightning bolt scar when I was five. And the first time I met someone who I fancied a bit, my hair went all blond and curly and I didn't even realize what had happened until everyone started laughing at me and I looked in a mirror. It was so embarrassing and I couldn't control it." 

"It's too bad she wasn't here to teach you about it all, because no one else really can. I mean, I bet Andromeda's got a few ideas of what she went through, but Tonks always hid a lot of her abilities from your grandparents, because she freaked them out a few times when she was really little. Trust me, your grandmother has chilled out a _lot_ since then. Your mum was really self-conscious of her metamorphing for a long time, especially back when she couldn't control it. I imagine you've experimented quite a bit with your abilities?" 

"Oh, erm, yeah. I've got a lot more self-control now too—I rarely morph without meaning to anymore. I can make my hair and my eyes any color. I can make muscles and fat shift, but I have a hard time with bones. So I can't make myself taller or shorter, but I can make myself fatter or more muscular. And I can do cartilage too—all kinds of noses, which Grandma says my mum did too. The noses." 

"I remember how your mum developed all those skills over the years too. She was always practicing in private or showing off her new hair colors or pig's nose to me, but she didn't use her abilities much at all in public until we were in our last year at Hogwarts, when she had them solidly under control. By seventh year she had managed to metamorph her entire body so she could look like anyone she wanted. She would always try to trick me, changing to look like other students or total strangers or friends of ours. I always knew it was her though, and she always got so angry with me because she could never figure out how I always knew." 

"How'd you know?" Teddy asked eagerly, leaning forward in his seat. 

Charlie looked lost in thought for just a moment, with a sad smile touching the edge of his mouth, before he reached into a knapsack behind him and pulled out a faded t-shirt. "I guess this should be yours now. I've had it long enough." 

Teddy scrambled to catch the shirt that was suddenly thrown at him, his awkward, growing limbs never able to follow his brain's commands in time. He examined the shirt carefully, noting the well-worn, faded cotton and the hole at the bottom and the swirled purple color and the peeling lettering that spelled out WEI D SISIERS. 

"Is this my mum's?" he asked, already knowing the answer. 

"Yeah, The Weird Sisters had just come out and no one else had even heard of them, but your mum was obsessed. Wore that bloody shirt all the time. Smell it." 

Teddy looked at Charlie strangely, but held the shirt up for a hesitant sniff anyway. Once he determined that it wasn't a trick and that it wasn't meant to smell like 20-year-old body odor or dragon dung from Charlie's job, he inhaled deeply. 

"And _that_ is how I always knew who she was, no matter what body or face she was wearing. She always smelled like that, like … I don't even know … but it smells amazing, doesn't it? It was some kind of personalized perfume. I cast an Ever Scent preserving charm on that shirt, so it should always keep that smell. You can keep it." Teddy's fingers clenched over the fabric and he looked up to see Charlie looking uncomfortable, running a hand over short-shorn red bristles on his head. 

"Thanks, Charlie," Teddy offered, taking another breath of his mother's scent before folding the shirt up and setting it carefully on his lap. "So, were you guys, like, in love, or what?" 

Charlie's face went pink, just like Ginny's always did when Teddy pointed out something that she hadn't thought he'd noticed. "Yeah, I guess we were. I mean, we were young and we were both complete idiots and more than a bit mad and always in trouble and drove each other insane and always bickering and … yeah, we were in love." 

"Could you tell me about her? I mean, I don't know very much about her, not really. Gran tells me stories about her as a baby or little girl, but I don't think that she really knew very much about my mum once she got a little older. I think they fought a lot or something and it makes Gran sad to talk about it. But I just want to know more about her. I mean, she's my mum, you know?" 

Charlie hesitated and Teddy felt a rush of panicked frustration course through him. "Please, anything." 

Charlie gave a strange smile, an odd expression that looked happy and sad at the same time. "It's hard to know where to even start, you know?" There was silence for just long enough for Teddy to think that Charlie was going to give him the same non-answers that everyone else did: _she was nice, she was fun, she was beautiful, she was smart, she was a great person._ He thought wildly that if he heard that same crap again he was going to scream. Why did people always give the same perfect, personality-less, placating answers about dead people? Why couldn't they ever say anything _real_ about his parents? 

"She took a Charms examination for me seventh year, because I still hadn't managed one of charms yet and McGonagall threatened to suspend me from Quidditch if I didn't pass. Don't tell McGonagall though, or she might retroactively give me detention or something." 

Teddy grinned at the thought of his mum using her abilities to help her best friend cheat on an exam—he'd known that there had to be more to her than just _nice_ and _fun._ He leaned forward, listening with wide-eyes and rapt attention as Charlie continued to regale Teddy with stories about Charlie and his mum during their Hogwarts years. 

Charlie told him about the time that he'd broken two bones in his left arm while catching the Snitch in the Gryffindor-Ravenclaw match, and how Tonks had sat by his bedside until he'd woken up from the Skele-Gro nap, made him swear that he was all right, and then gave him a black eye for worrying her like that. 

Charlie told Teddy how they used to sneak out and go wandering around the Forbidden Forest. How his mum had loved unicorns but had rarely been able to get close on account of her loud stumbling, which spooked the animals before she could get close enough. 

How one time they pissed off the Centaurs and had barely made it out of the woods unscathed. How they'd collapsed in the grass just beyond the Forbidden Forest, gasping from running so fast, shivering from the cold November air, and buzzing with adrenaline. How she'd given him a wild, triumphant look and announced that that had been the first time she'd ever made it through the Forbidden Forest at a dead run without tripping over anything and then kissed him. How it had been the most exhilarating first kiss of Charlie's life. 

How she stood up to bullies who picked on younger students. How she once added near a stone of muscle to her arms before she punched a nasty Slytherin seventh year and knocked him flat on his arse. How she had once blown up an entire cauldron of Dreamless Sleep Draught and rendered half the class unconscious. How she hated eggs in all possible forms and drank tea with a ridiculous amount of sugar but never any cream. 

How she could sweet-talk her way out of punishment nine times out of ten. How she was utterly tone deaf but dreamed of starting her own band. How she was the biggest klutz he had ever met and annoyingly stubborn and overly persistent and tended to blow things up. 

How she'd been his best friend and first love. 

Teddy hung on every word until his stupid teenage stomach growled loudly, making Charlie laugh. 

"I've been going on, haven't I? Bloody hell, it's half seven!" Teddy was just as surprised, glancing sharply at the large grandfather clock on the other side of the room to check for himself. 

"Listen, I've got to get going. I've got to be somewhere. But keep the shirt and here's a few other things I found in my old room at the Burrow. Thought you might like them. I'm … I'm sorry I never talked to you sooner about her. I honestly never even thought about how you might want to hear about her troublemaking days at school. I should have though, and I'm glad your grandmother owled me. I hope that … I hope that you understand just how incredible your mum was. I've never met anyone else like her and she's the most amazing girl I've ever known, yeah? So, just owl me or something if you have questions or something down the road. I'll answer as best I can, okay?" 

"Thanks. Really. For the stories. For the shirt. This stuff. I don't even remember her and I just wanted her to be, you know, real or something. Now it kind of feels like she is, you know? Plus, my mum was _cool!_ " Teddy enthused, making Charlie grin widely. 

"You know, she really, really was. From what I hear, you're just like her. I'll see you around, kid." Charlie gave Teddy a brief hug before gruffly saying good bye and stepping back in the Floo. 

After eating an enormous sandwich, Teddy found his grandmother in her study and hugged her tightly. When he pulled back, she looked relieved and suspiciously shiny-eyed. "Thanks," he offered with an apologetic smile. She offered a watery smile in return and he rolled his eyes good-naturedly and let her swat at him before he went back up to his room to think over all the stories about his mum and go through the small box of stuff Charlie had given him. 

He sifted through the box's contents. There wasn't much there, just a couple scraps of parchment with notes she'd written to Charlie during classes, a few photographs, and a Weird Sisters record with a cracked cover. It was brilliant, though. Teddy ran a finger down the edge of a photograph of Charlie and his mum, where every few seconds she metamorphed to look like Charlie and poked him in the ribs. 

He really was a lot more like his mum than he'd ever thought. He somehow felt more closely connected to her than he ever had before. She'd had to master the whole Metamorphmagus thing all by herself, just like he had—or at least he would. She'd been tiny and scrawny and had a hot temper. She'd snuck out of the dorms at night and broken rules to help her friends and messed up just as much as he did. 

That night he lay in bed, his mum's old t-shirt next to him, and thought of questions for the next time he saw Charlie. He also determined that before the summer was over, he would master full-body metamorphing. His mum had been able to do it by seventh year, and if he was as much like his mum as he thought, he figured he could figure it out even earlier than that. Both exhilarated and exhausted from the informational onslaught of the day, he drifted off. As he slipped into a dream where he was hanging out with his mum in the Forbidden Forest, galloping across a field on unicorns, and saving crying ickle firsties by punching their giant Slytherin tormentors, Teddy's last conscious thought was that growing up to be just like his mum was definitely all right by him. 

*fin


End file.
